Digital Media Buzz > eBooks: Device For Now and the Future

eBooks: Device For Now and the Future

By Ron Callari

Digital or e-publishing has evolved significantly over the last decade with a lot of attention paid to how the content is delivered to the public. eBook readers jockey for position as to which device will gain greater e-reader market share.

While we become more knowledgeable about the Kindle versus the Sony Reader advantages vis a vis an Oprah or Ellen DeGeneres endorsement, there are many factors that determine today’s buying preferences, the least of which is the movement supporting “greener” technologies.

Kindle vs. Sony Reader
One can now bypass the $259 expenditure of a Kindle and have immediate access to the more than 360,000 Kindle books available today. Kindle for PC Beta downloads and Kindle for iPhones are now available for free. This provides one with the opportunity of reading a Kindle book without acquiring another device.

However with every technology shortcut, there are always trade-offs. Dave Baxter, deputy director for Robot Comics whose firm adapts comics and graphic novels for e-readers, believes that what people really want is the “eReader device, not just an electronic way to read books.”

Kindle’s high resolution requirement of using eInk® Imaging Film is another issue. One can read a Kindle in direct sunlight and at virtually any angle. On the desktop and iPhone, the reader may struggle with the glare emanating off of a large or small screen.

According to Baxter, “the Kindle PC is the most stripped down PC reader,” he’s ever encountered. “As a comic publisher, I point out [to readers] that comics formatted specifically for the Kindle screen looks terrible on the PC reader.” Kindle formatting is lost on the large desktop screen and may cause eyestrain on the small iPhone display.

Jeff Orr, senior analyst, mobile devices at ABI Research affirms that different devices are determined by different audiences. “For a purist book reader, the eBook Reader (Amazon’s or otherwise) provides access to one’s existing library along with new releases. Audiences that have an existing laptop, netbook or smartphone with an eReader application may prefer the re-use or convenience of one device to service multiple needs,” Orr says.

Portability becomes another issue.  While a Kindle allows for mobility, according to a Download Squad report, the significant challenge with Kindle for PC is “it’s geographically restricted and won’t work in most countries outside of the US.”

Amazon’s Kindle for iPhone could be a free hardware alternative to the Kindle device particularly since one doesn’t have to buy another expensive device on top of the cost of the iPhone. However, it may be more suitable for the casual reader who reads comics or books with a small number of pages at one sitting. For the voracious reader, the Kindle’s size and feel is more comparable to the book reading that many of us have grown accustomed to. Its advantage over an actual book is its light-weight and the ability to store hundreds of books in one self-contained device.

“Likely, the PC and iPhone reader downloads will only be useful as a ‘free trial’ kind of offer.  Eventually, anyone seriously considering reading whole books and graphic literature off the Kindle store, will only find this acceptable on the Kindle device itself,” notes Baxter.

Looking into the future of digital publishing, it’s possible that e-book readers will be replaced by do-it-all devices and possibly even the Apple Tablet. However according to a study conducted by media producer Zachary Sherwood, it determined that “Kindle users skew older with a significant higher education than the general populace. With 69 percent over the age of 40 and 72 percent with a 4-year college degree, Baxter interpreted this study to mean that “older generations have taken to dedicate e-readers far more than do-it-all devices.”

He supports this claim by asserting that the “simplicity and straight-forward nature of e-readers appeals to the generations who didn’t grow up in a hand-held mobile gadget saturated environment.” Again, the hand-held Kindle comes closer to actual book reading than multi-purpose devices. “And that’s the true strength of any dedicated e-reader - it forgoes all other considerations to procure the best reading experience,” notes Baxter.

Orr draws an analogy to the Swiss Army knife and how it doesn’t replace the market for all of the task/tools it offers. “A portion of the consumer audience looks at do-all devices as too expensive. The mentality is that if it contains all these other functions and one has no need for them, the perceived value is diminished (”I paid too much for something I won’t use”),” Orr notes.

Media and Internet tablets like Apple are an emerging category of mobile computer (a slate or tablet form-factor) “that have yet to gain any traction,” Orr says. “The bulk of research reports refer to computers (using a desktop computer-type operating system) that incorporate a touch screen display,” he says.

Because eBook readers and eInk technologies are complex and expensive to design and manufacture, Orr believes that the technologies to develop in the dedicated eBook reader market is “form-factor, color and content,” where form-factor refers to the size of the device, color to a richer media experience and content to integrate TV and other multi-media resources.

“There is a desire to move digital publishing beyond the early adopter and into mainstream as well as vertical audiences,” Orr states. He uses the example of today’s educators wanting to deliver full curriculums via eBook readers, and is only stymied from doing so based on “poor formatting of non-text content and lack of immersive experiences (color, animation, video, etc.) that have them postponing aspirations.”

On the other hand, Baxter and Robot Comics are in the business of adapting graphic images for eReaders. Those waiting for the rumored Apple iTablet to experience the new iteration of digital comics can find it with this publisher. The Android platform, widely known for its use in mobiles phones, is also one of the first to be deployed for tablet PCs and netbooks, far in advance of any other operating system.  Anyone with an Android device can download Droid Comic Viewer through the Android Market or AndAppStore, and comfortably read Robot Comics’ releases as displayed on this video.

So whether or not the Kindle or Sony Reader becomes a distant memory in the distant future, audiences will determine. Whether a move into the academic, comics or graphic novel worlds will steer the course of the future, much of what happens will be determined by business models that are sound. To bring the price down on hand-held devices, perhaps the lessons learned from legacy journalism and advertising may be a way to subsidize the cost of getting devices into people’s hands cheaply.

As much as Internet tech pundits are fond of relating research pertaining to Web-based, real-time applications and content retrieval, what appears to be the case at least for the foreseeable future is the actual replication of the best book-reading experience. And as noted by Baxter, “multipurpose devices will forever come up short next to this.”